Games for Kids, or Games My Seven-Year-Old Son Likes
In response to a couple of requests for reviews of kids’ games on
the Just Adventure message board, I am writing this article about what
my son likes. First, a little about him: Nick is seven years old. He
is mentally advanced but physically immature compared to other kids
his age. He lacks the ability to focus on something he’s not interested
in, and he has been playing on the computer since he was about four.
His favorite subject in school is math; he also likes science. He has
been reading to himself since he was three. He likes to watch me play
adventure games and offers plenty of advice (and sometimes even a good
idea or two), but he would not be capable of completing one himself.
Let me start by saying that I don’t think there are many pure adventure
games out there for kids–at least, we haven’t run across any. We recently
got Pink Panther’s Passport to Peril and The Day the World Broke;
both of these actually look like adventure games on the outside but
Nick is grounded off the computer right now, so we haven’t tried them
yet. (When we do, we can update this article.) As a result, this article
is going to be somewhat off the topic of the site. I will run down the
list of kids’ games we have and briefly describe why Nick likes them or
not.
Magic School Bus
We have all of these and wish there were more. These are definitely Nick’s
favorites. They are also the closest thing to an “adventure”
game for kids that we have. They are educational (science) but without
shoving it in your face. In all of them, you start out in the classroom,
where there are things to click on and learn about, and then you go on
the field trip with Ms. Frizzle in the Magic School Bus. For instance,
in MSB Solar System, you are off to space to discover things about
each planet. Each game has multiple locations to visit, and you get a
prize of some sort by completing the puzzles. These get an A+ in our
house.
Grossology
What can I say? The name sums it up. This game has puzzles involving belching,
farting tunes, vomit, and boogers, and a lot of toilet humor. It is educational
in exactly the areas a seven-year-old wants to learn more about. Another
A+ here, purely for subject matter. We have two of the Grossology
books, too. Nick has told me more about dust mites than I ever wanted
to know. I have to tell him I choose not to think about dust mites or
I will freak out, so please don’t bring it up again. He just laughs and
starts telling me about farts instead. A caveat: if your family members
tighten their rectums to fart more quietly or drink soda slowly so as
not to belch out loud, you might find this game offensive.
Sim City, Sim Ant, Sim Tower
We have a messload of these Sim games, too. Sim City and
Sim Ant are Nick’s favorites. Even though for the most part these
games are really more geared toward adults, Nick likes to play them. He
doesn’t bother with setting up the city or ant colony or whatever to run
for a long time; he just sets them up quickly and then rains disaster
down upon them in the form of monsters, air crashes, spiders, etc. Next
to Magic School Bus and Grossology, these games are his
favorites. These are graded A in our house, but I’m not sure if
other kids would really enjoy them much. I’d say give one a try–they
are readily available and cheap, so you’d only be out $10 or so if your
kid didn’t like it.
The Incredible Machine, The Incredible Toon Machine
These games involve Rube Goldberg-type machines. You are supposed to solve
the puzzles by putting parts in the right places to accomplish the given
goal. Again, Nick doesn’t spend much time “doing the right thing”
with these games; rather, he goes into freeform mode and builds his own
machines, then watches what happens when he runs them. For example, he
puts 50 “Mels” (a little guy) high up on the screen and watches
them fall when he runs it, or finds a way to pop 50 balloons. Both of
these games are played a lot; we give them a B+.
Math Blasters
We have a couple of these games, the early learning one and the next level.
From what I’ve seen, most of the puzzles involve shooting at the correct
answer to a math problem or bouncing numbers to solve math problems. These
are pretty much in-your-face educational games, but Nick plays them pretty
regularly. He loves math and is good at it, so the educational factor
does not put him off. (You can select levels; he always leaves it on the
easiest because he is a lazy little booger.) These are not as popular,
however, as the games listed above, so they probably only rate a B-
from us. Also, I think if you bought one of these games just to make
your kid better at math, they’d bomb. If your child does not like math
or is not good at it, these games would not be much fun.
Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective
This game, like the other, more advanced Carmen Sandiego games,
assume a certain knowledge base that the player may or may not have. Nick
didn’t have it and so didn’t enjoy this game much. He hasn’t really tried
it in over a year, though, so maybe he would like it if he were to try
it again with his second-grade education. He did enjoy the book that came
with the game; it had a lot of activities in it. My opinion is $25 is
too much to pay for an activity book, though. I’ll pass on grading this
game until Nick plays it again, but I don’t hold out much hope for his
enjoying it.
Point-and-Click Games
This is how I categorize those games where you just click on something
on the screen to get a cute cartoon or sound effect, and the big picture
usually consists of having a story read to you. Titles include Fractured
Fairy Tales, Arthur, Little Monster, Bug Explorers, and I Spy.
These games are not at all challenging to Nick; they are more suited
to kids with no knowledge and rudimentary computer skills. We give
them a D in our house; they usually get played for a day or so and
then forgotten forever.
Puzzle Games
Titles we have include The Island of Dr. Brain, Logic Quest, Puzzle
Castle, and Highlights Puzzlemania. These games require a bit
more focus than Nick is capable of. He is not very goal-oriented. Again,
they get played for a little while and then forgotten, but we give
them a C- because they do get played a bit longer and more often than
the point-and-click games.
Arcade Games
We have Earthworm Jim, a couple of Sonic the Hedgehog games,
Mario’s Time Machine, Animaniacs Game Pack, and Pitfall. These
games are too hard for Nick. He loves to play them, but he stinks at them
and gets really aggravated when he can’t progress past a certain point.
These games are what gets him grounded off the computer. I don’t quite
know how to rate this category: on the one hand, Nick really gets into
them (A), and on the other hand, they always get him in trouble (F). I
guess we will give them the ol’ middle-ground C as a rating. (For
some reason, he can play this type of game on Nintendo or PlayStation
and not get so angry with them, but put him on the computer and it’s only
a matter of time before he’s in tears.)
In conclusion, I would most wholeheartedly recommend any or all of the
Magic School Bus games for all kids; they are fun to play, not
overbearing on the educational aspect, and can be enjoyed by a child of
any age above preschool and prior to teenaged. I think most of the boxes
say the games are for ages 6 to 12, but Nick was playing them when he
was four. He liked them then and he still likes them now. I would also
more reservedly recommend Grossology. If you are not hung up on
political correctness, your kids would enjoy this game a lot; however,
I think the more polite members of our society might frown on the subject
matter.
